Rachel Taff has cut her teeth in the television world where she was recently the Director of Development at Dynamic Television, which produced Ginny and Georgia. She’s worked on shows including Snowfall, The Plot Against America, SMILF, American Dad, and Fresh Off the Boat. Now, she’s turning her attention to the page with a debut novel titled Paper Cut.
Coming out on January 27, 2026 from William Morrow, the book is about a woman infamous for escaping a cult as a teenager, who finds her future threatened when dangerous secrets come back to haunt her. The book is now available for pre-order.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Paper Cut, designed by Yeon Kim, alongside a Q&A with Taff about crafting the eye-catching cover that pops with a dash of sinister hiding in plain sight.
While writing the book, did you have any ideas for what you wanted the cover to look like?
Initially, I figured photography might be a component of the cover because the main character’s mother is a famous photographer. The novel explores perception, presentation, and the relationship between artist and muse. There’s a nod to femme fatales and noir, so I pictured imagery in that vein: old Hollywood glamour, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Slim Aarons’ work in Palm Springs, Double Indemnity, all quintessential California. Since the novel features a cult in the desert, the photographs of the Manson Family at Spawn Ranch came to mind as well. In hindsight, I realize now photography in this realm may have leaned too historical and Paper Cut is contemporary fiction.
Can you explain what the design process was like once you started working with your publishing team?
I shared a deck jam-packed with book covers and film posters I loved, the real-life settings I reference, and stills from movies and television shows that spoke to me during writing. I also pointed to some of the novel’s comps and included the covers of Jessica Knoll, Chelsea Bieker, and Emma Cline. I wasn’t sure what direction we would choose because my ideas were a bit all over the place! The cover became the first tangible indicator of how the book would be positioned into the marketplace. As a team, we’ve always seen Paper Cut as upmarket psychological suspense, ripe for book club discussions. The cover needed to strike a delicate balance: appeal commercially to a wide range of readers, entice literary fans of what I lovingly call “unhinged female rage books,” and invoke a thriller tone. Given Paper Cut is an abstract title, the design needed to tie the title to the story. Early on, we concluded there needed to be a paper element in the design. We tried another direction initially that, while well-executed, didn’t quite capture the suspenseful tone. Ultimately this gutsy, iconographic strategy was the way to go! We played around with a number of fonts to find one that reads sophisticated and suspenseful but also modern. Finally, we massaged the tagline to relay a couple key elements of the story and pique the reader’s curiosity.
What was it like seeing your finalized cover for the first time?
I think I actually said “Whoa!” It was such a big pivot from what I originally conceived and the first direction we explored but luckily, seeing this cover for the first time felt like a full-bodied exhale. There she is. I immediately loved that it would stand out on a bookshelf and daydreamed about holding it in my hands. The overall effect is bold, confident, and intentional. It pulls no punches!
How does the cover work to convey what the contents of the story are?
A book within a book, Paper Cut is a dual timeline novel, split between the protagonist Lucy Golden’s memoir about her infamous summer in an insidious cult and her fight to stay in the limelight twenty years later. Paper Cut is about the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive, and as it often does, the impartial truth bleeds through. The bloody cut of paper down the middle speaks to the dual nature of the novel and Lucy’s fragmented perception of herself as a true crime icon versus an artist, a perpetrator versus a victim, and ultimately, a daughter versus an individual. The design demonstrates the dark battles lurking beneath pretty packages. Lucy’s story is about the perils of fame, owning your power, and finding your voice no matter the cost. Thematically, it’s spot on. The vivid colors and assertive design scream: “Notice me!”